1. Field of the Invention
The present invention related to methods and apparatus for channel interleaving in OFDM systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telecommunication enables transmission of data over a distance for the purpose of communication between a transmitter and a receiver. The data is usually carried by radio waves and is transmitted using a limited transmission resource. That is, radio waves are transmitted over a period of time using a limited frequency range.
In a contemporary communication system, the information to be transmitted are first encoded and then modulated to generate multiple modulation symbols. The symbols are subsequently mapped into a time and frequency resource block available for data transmission. Usually, the time and frequency resource block is segmented into a plurality of equal duration resource elements.
In Third (3rd) Generation Partnership Project Long Term Evolution (3GPP LTE) systems, certain resource elements are allocated for control signal transmission. Therefore, the data symbols may be mapped into the resource elements that are not allocated for control signal transmission. Each data transmission carries information bits of one or multiple transport blocks. When a transport block is larger than the largest code block size, the information bits in a transport block may be segmented into multiple code blocks. The process of dividing the information bits in a transport block into multiple code blocks is called code block segmentation. Due to the limited selection of code block sizes and the attempt to maximize packing efficiency during the code block segmentation, the multiple code blocks of a transport block may have different sizes. Each code block will be encoded, interleaved, rate matched, and modulated. Therefore, the data symbols for a transmission may consist of modulation symbols of multiple code blocks.